For many years, rows of cotton were spaced at least thirty-eight to forty inches apart. Recently, however, farmers have noted a substantial increase in productivity when the cotton rows are spaced closer together; i.e. about thirty inches apart. Besides an increase in cotton productivity, narrower spacing between rows allows uniformity between seed planting operations. For these and other reasons, there is an incentive to plant cotton in narrow rows.
Conventional self propelled cotton harvesters utilize individual harvesting units mounted at a front end of the cotton harvester. Each harvesting unit typically includes two picker rotors comprised of numerous circularly driven picker bars. Each picker bar mounts a plurality of rotatably driven, radially extending picker spindles for removing the cotton from the plant.
A pair of doffer assemblies along with a picker spindle moistening assembly are typically provided in combination with the harvesting unit. Each doffer assembly, having numerous doffer pads, is provided to remove the cotton from the individual picker spindles. The picker spindle moistening assembly includes a series of vertically arranged moistening pads for adding moistening fluid to each of the cotton picker spindles before they are introduced to the cotton plants.
Although considerable design effort has resulted in cotton harvesting units of reduced size and weight, the usage and required operation of such units dictates a relatively large size mechanism having considerable weight. Because of their structure, arranging the individual harvesting units on a cotton harvester for picking narrow rows of cotton has been a continuing source of difficulty.
Cotton picker machines having up to four individual harvesting units arranged in side-by-side relationship relative to each other have been designed to increase cotton picker production. To allow for picking of adjacent, narrowly spaced rows of cotton it is known to arrange the picker rotors of one harvesting unit such that they tranversely overlap or nest relative to the picker rotors of an adjacent picker unit.
Complete servicing of the harvesting units which are so arranged is difficult and time consuming because of the limited accessability between units. To remove an inboard harvesting unit for servicing usually requires removal of the adjacent outboard harvesting unit. Simultaneous removal of both harvesting units causes problems due to the bulkiness and weight of the separate harvesting units. Moreover, removal of the outboard harvesting unit before the removal of the inboard harvesting unit takes additional time, a premium during the harvest season.